My
kids still have their entire adult lives ahead and I want to fortify
them with the belief that they can help steer the world toward true
peace and democracy. What brilliant hopes might I offer on a day
that I deem so dismal?

By Sarah
Werthan Buttenwieser

November
3, 2004.

First thing this morning,
my son Lucien, age six, asked, “Did Kerry win?”

“We’re not
sure,” I answered, “but it doesn’t look good.”

Lucien and I, along with
my nine-year old, Ezekiel, got on the Internet to find out. The
race in Ohio, which will decide this election, was still too close
to call. They are hopeful, my sons, for a president who stands
for peace and wants to preserve the environment. Those are the
issues they relate to. They are hopeful because they are young
and have experienced so many good things: they love school, have
a nice house, happy family, lots of friends, and have seen the
best of other places— Broadway, beaches, Hyde Park in London— and
even watched their team— the Boston Red Sox— triumph.
Bad things, such as discrimination, war, poverty, and violence
are stories to them at this point. As children of privilege, they
reap the benefits of safety and of peace where they live. What
I sit with on this quiet, brilliant, windy morning is how to talk
to them meaningfully about the world today on the brink of Bush’s
second term as President.

While I believe with every
fiber of my soul that Bush has done horrific things for this country
and this world, to call him bad or mean or evil does nothing positive.
Although it’s unfathomable to me that he can imagine the
course he’s charted— despite admonitions from intelligence
and military savants— is the one toward security (maybe not
peace), it is painfully clear that he does believe he’s doing
the right thing. For my part, I don’t want to foster hatred
in my children, not of Bush or Cheney or Republicans in general,
not of Saddam or Bin Laden, or even the Yankees. I also don’t
want to scare them with the litany of fears racing through my mind:
the divides of the third world will become so pronounced here that
we can’t deny them, we’ll lose reproductive freedom,
social security, public transportation… and a draft will
be reinstated in the new year. Not to mention that with escalated
tensions in other parts of the worlds unabated over the coming
years, terrorism could move to these shores. I have half a lifetime
left as an adult citizen of this country; my kids still have their
entire adult lives ahead and I want to fortify them with the belief
that they can help steer the world toward true peace and democracy.
So, what do I want to convey to them? What brilliant hopes might
I offer on a day that I deem so dismal? There must be something.

Closing my eyes, I remember
that Helen Keller couldn’t see or hear, but from within darkness
and silence she figured out how— with help from her devoted
teacher, Anne Sullivan— to communicate. Abolitionists and
suffragettes created networks that paved the way for freedom and
democracy unimagined before their forward thinking and bravery
prompted change. Elizabeth Blackwell, in becoming a doctor, did
more than become a doctor herself; she opened the door for women
to become doctors. Anne Frank poignantly chronicled the terrors
of war and blind hatred alongside the wise optimism of adolescence
and in doing so, her slice of sky from her family’s hiding
place has been shared by millions. Nelson Mandela endured decades
in prison and went on to help lead his troubled nation away from
the deep gouges of apartheid toward justice. Rosa Parks’ bold
courage on a bus nearly a half-century ago not only moved our own
country toward a recognition of civil rights, her simple act persists,
an icon children of every generation that follows can grasp. The
Kenyan environmentalist, Wangari Maathai, whose Green Belt project
brought trees to her native land, recently became the first African
woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Darkness to light, that
theme I can take hold of, that theme my kids can comprehend. Is
it melodramatic to urge my children to find their heroes and to
encourage that we learn our lessons from them— even across
history and across the world? I think not. I believe that it’s
a fine time to honor those who have reached from darkness to reveal
light. The most profound change seems to happen that way each and
every time. Maybe the light my kids find shining over them— in
the stories of those who made their lives beacons of light to the
brightness of our family’s laughter— will carry them
through. Maybe they will be beacons of light because we figured
out how to protect their hope.

mmo : November
2004

Sarah
Werthan Buttenwieser is a former reproductive rights
organizer turned writer, attempting to raise three fair-minded
children in Northampton, Massachusetts.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author
and do not necessarily reflect the views or policy positions of the
MMO or its staff.